Part 4: Underperformers and Overachievers
As much as Liverpool manager Arne Slot’s approach isn’t worlds apart from Jürgen Klopp’s, any time a new manager arrives there will be players who benefit and others who miss out. That was certainly the case in 2024-25, with the unexpected emergence of a few new stars—along with stumbles for a few Klopp favourites.
Now that the season is in the books, we wanted to dig into the players who gave the Reds a lot more than we were maybe expecting from them heading in and, on the flip side, touch on any players whose futures at the club are looking more tenuous today than they did a year ago.
Steph
How is it possible that eight seasons in, Mohamed Salah is still managing to overachieve? It’s hard for me to expect more from the guy, and yet he somehow keeps outdoing himself. The iconic kpop group BTS (yes, I am referencing BTS, just be thankful that I have restrained myself from doing it more often) has a line in one of their songs that perfectly encompasses Mo: “breaking a new record is a race with myself.”
It’s a bit shameful, but for whatever reason, I’m completely face blind (body-shape blind? hair blind?) when it comes to Alexis Mac Allister. For my life, I cannot immediately recognize that man when he’s on the pitch. I have no idea why. It came to the point where I knew that if I ever thought, Wait, who is that guy? that’s how I would know it was him. All of which is to say I thought, Wait, who is that guy? was usually amongst the best players on the pitch, and along with Ryan Gravenberch he absolutely carried this midfield.
More than anyone, I think it’s those two, Mac Allister and Gravenberch, who most embodied the football that we can expect to see from Slot going forward, which told us something we maybe didn’t know at the start of the year. On the other hand it’s Darwin Núñez and poor, perpetually injured Joe Gomez as my picks for the underachievers of the season. But in a season when it was all hands on deck to win the league, it feels mean to pick on anyone.
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Mari
Ryan Gravenberch is the obvious overperformer of choice, I feel, given especially his age and the fact that he was playing in a new position. Prior to the start of the season, Liverpool lacking in defensive midfield options was a major reason the Reds weren’t discussed amidst potential league winners. While Alexis Mac Allister has gotten deserved roses in midfield as well, his levels were more expected as a World Cup winner—and so were Mohamed Salah’s, come to that, even if he was playing out of his mind.
The underperformer for me is probably anyone in the nine generally, which does speak to player performances on the one hand but also perhaps to how that role functioned in Arne Slot’s system. For natural strikers like Diogo Jota and Darwin Núñez, the pressing numbers (and, for Núñez, defensive work on set plays especially) were high, but the chances each got in front of goal was on the low side.
When wide players were asked to fill in centrally, it tended to harm any form they had shown when playing wide. That says perhaps that it’s more system than individual, and I think Jota pre-injury was probably the best performer in the role—but it seemed challenging for everyone. Still, I’d say some frustration centrally is grand if it suits Mo Salah Records.
Dexian
I love the guy, but it was a bad season for Darwin Núñez. The numbers are clearly down across the board, but getting your work ethic called out by the head coach publicly several times in a season is pretty yikes. Watching him miss sitters, that’s fine. But seeing him react badly to missing them and then letting it affect his duties on the pitch made it a lot worse.
In theory, even if he’s not clinical enough to start, his engine should make him a perfect substitute, and fans always expect him to come on and cause his brand of chaos. However, a lack of mental strength in reacting to misses has essentially seen some of his substitute performances turn into him jogging around in a daze after an early miss or two. That’s not great. He’ll go down in LFC folklore for Brentford, perhaps, but 2024-25 was a season that sealed the end of his time here.
Ryan Gravenberch, then, has to be the overachiever. His emergence at the six covered up Richard Hughes’ big miss last summer in the transfer window and put his teammates in a better position to succeed all season long. Together with Alexis Mac Allister, he looks set to be the beating heart of Liverpool’s do-it-all midfield foundation for the rest of the decade.
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Gabe
We’ve had plenty highlight the performances of Ryan Gravenberch and Mohamed Salah, as well as rue to missed opportunities of Darwin Núñez, for obvious reasons. Rather than echo the obvious, then, I’ll throw in a couple of different names.
While many (rightly) lauded the completely unexpected emergence of Gravenberch as a silky smooth holding midfielder, Alexis Mac Allister quietly balled out besid him in a more box to box role. Mac Allister did tons of dirty work in the midfield, but also showed his top class skill with several wunderstrikes in key moments. Just to show the balance, Macca lead the regular starters with just over four tackles and interceptions per 90 minutes while also averaging over four shot creating actions per 90 (stats via FBREF).
As for underperformers, Diogo Jota deserves to be on the list. Arne Slot never seemed to really trust Darwin Núñez, but he did seem to like Jota. In the end, though, the Portuguese striker struggled mightily with fitness and form, missing 18 matches through muscle injuries and struggling to have an impact despite being given regular starting opportunities during the run-in. Known more as a poacher than a producer, Jota missed on some chances you would really expect him to bury.
Noel
Everybody’s saying Salah and Gravenberch. It’s hard to argue with that. It bears repeating (and repeating), but even with everyone taking the final month of the season off, Mohamed Salah just had one of the all-time great seasons for a Premier League attacker. Record book stuff. Ballon d’Or stuff. At 32, he reinvented himself, carried the Reds to their 20th domestic league title, and left no doubt he’s amongst the greatest players in the history of Liverpool Football Club. That all bears repeating (and repeating).
As for Gravenberch, I think maybe people should put more weight on the young player finding his feet after a difficult time at Bayern side of things when contextualizing his first season in Red, but even then clearly nobody was expecting him to be arguably the best holding mid in England and the league’s obvious Young Player of the Year award winner.
I feel, though, that beyond the two obvious headliners, somebody has to give a nod to Luis Diaz. Liverpool’s feisty, electric-footed Colombian contributed 17 goals and eight assists, a goal involvement every 133 minutes. There were times in the first half of the season when even with Salah on the other side he was Liverpool’s most dangerous forward. Lucho played a bigger role in the title than a lot of people seem to have given him credit for. He deserves his flowers and an ice cold Aguila.
On the flip side, Darwin regressing is the obvious headliner for biggest disappointment this season, and Federico Chiesa not even getting a proper sniff remains equal parts puzzling and disappointing, but personally I’ve gotta drop Harvey Elliott here on the other side of the convo. I can’t think of many other Liverpool players I’ve wanted to see succeed more than him. On paper, based on what Slot did at Feyenoord, he seemed a perfect fit. Instead, we’re talking about him moving on now for the sake of his career.
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Zach
Although this question is focused primarily on the players, I felt like someone needs to step back and show the gaffer some love. Arne Slot just came in and pissed the league, got to a cup final, and was pretty unlucky with the Champions League draw, which under different circumstances probably would’ve resulted in a deeper run in Europe. With apologies to the doubters, the Shankly to Paisley comparisons are only intensifying, and rightly so.
As for underperformers, it breaks my heart, but it’s probably the best for everyone to see The Child (aka Harvey) and the Chaos Himbo (aka Darwin) go. Best of luck, lads, I really did want both of you to work out.
Jordan
I agree with everyone that our underachievers are the more nine-style strikers, Diogo Jota and Darwin Núñez. They’re the reason Salah had to carry the attack, and while it did make for an enjoyable season for the most part, I was hoping that as our best finisher Jota would have more of an impact and that Darwin would have matured a little more in the role.
While I love our agent of chaos, we’re moving towards a more pragmatic approach with a little less insanity, and so it looks simply like chaos doesn’t suit the system anymore. I love Darwin, maybe even inexplicably, and a part of me still wants him to stay and become the Divock Origi of this cycle, but that’s probably not in the cards for the future so I think I’m ready to say goodbye.
And it’s the boring answer at this point, but I think Mo Salah was definitely the overachiever. Having arguably his best season since he arrived with us? At 32 years old? Insane. Even as he started to drop off in the second half of the season, as usual he still practically carried this team when we should’ve been beaten down. He’s one of the reasons we haven’t seen Federico Chiesa as much as any of us would’ve expected, because how do you compete with that level? How do you get minutes when the guy ahead of you is legitimately World Class and in the form of his life? You really can’t.